Journals

  • Bobo’s Passing

    Bobo passed away quietly early Tuesday morning, October 11th. He was in his spot between us, his head on a pillow. He’s been such an important part of our lives since 2000 that it’s hard to write this, even a month later.

    He made it through last winter and even at the end had an amazing spirit. This photo was taken on Sunday when we were out in the “old” garden. We miss him.

    The other cats have reorganized their lives without him relatively painlessly. Little Peach Blossom has discovered a new place to go to in the house. She likes to walk from the loft, on the beams above the kitchen, to either the bookshelf above the sink where Molly keeps some of her cookbooks or to a child’s chair hanging high overhead.

    Before we started this version of Sootypaws News it was entirely on our website. You can still see the old pages from years ago. There are lots of photos of Bobo, too.

    More soon!

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    Our Garden

    It’s been such a whir around here the past couple of months I haven’t had a chance to write or post anything about a really important addition to our home — the new vegetable garden. We began clearing just after the first of the year. Originally we thought we’d have to clear a half acre or so but we seem to have been lucky and have achieved our desires with the cutting of a lot less trees.

    We have photos of the stages of clearing and creating the garden, but there’s not time to present them right now.

    This was taken the beginning of July and shows Molly standing between the two raised beds in the garden. To her right are the marigolds and standing even taller are the tomatoes. In front of Molly is the large bed with about 100 square feet planted with soybeans (Molly’s harvested the last of these recently and they’re drying on the porch before shelling). This large bed will be our fall and winter garden. Molly’s already planting seeds.

    We’ll be having more about the garden and the new space we’ve cleared. It’s become a favorite of the cats and we now have a place where we can watch the sky at night in the summer. Plus we’re getting fresh organic vegetables!

    More soon!